Who wrote 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'?

Oscar Wilde wrote “The Ballad of Reading Gaol.” The poem was published in 1898 after Wilde’s release from Reading Gaol, where he had served a sentence for gross indecency.

Its central episode is the execution of Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a former Royal Horse Guards trooper who had been convicted of murdering his wife. Wilde witnessed Wooldridge in prison and dedicated the poem to him using the initials “C. T. W.” Rather than concentrating only on the crime, Wilde explores imprisonment, punishment, guilt, and the shared suffering of prisoners.

The title refers to Reading Gaol, officially HM Prison Reading, in Berkshire. A common mix-up is to associate the poem with Wilde’s plays or novel, such as “The Importance of Being Earnest” or “The Picture of Dorian Gray”; this is one of his major poetic works. Readers often ask about its famous refrain, which emphasizes that every person is capable of wrongdoing and suffering.